THE. SOURCE COE “TALE NILE. 295 
fuftenance, but their trade, their tribute to thé king, and 
the maintenance of a great part of the capital, depends up- 
on honey and butter, the common food of the better fort 
of people when they do not eat flefh; it compofes their 
drink alfo in mead or hydromel.. Now, this country, when 
uncultivated, naturally produces lupines, and the bloffoms. 
of thefe becoming food for the bees, gives the honey fuch 
a bitternefs that no perfon will eat it, or ufe it any way in 
food or for drink.—After the king had beftowed the village 
of Geefh upon me, though with the confent of Fafil its go- - 
vernor, that egregious fhuffler, to make the prefent of no 
ufe to me, fent me, indeed, the tribute of the honey in very 
large jars, but it all tafted fo much of the lupines that it 
was of no earthly ufe whatever. Their conftant attention 
is to weed out this bitter plant ; and, when any of thofe coun-- 
tries are defolated by war, we may expecta large crop of 
lupines immediately to follow, and, for a time, plenty of 
- bad honey in confequence.. It is, then, this. deftructive bear 
that Pythagoras, who, it is faid, ate no flefh, regarded.as an: 
object of deteftation ; it was equally fo.among the Abyflini- 
ans and Egyptians forthe fame reafon. Both nations, more- 
over, have an averfion to hogs flefh, and both avoid the touch: 
of dogs. TONE 
- Ir is here I propofe-to take notice of an unnatural cuftom: 
which prevails univerfally in Abyfiinia, and which in early 
ages feems to have been common.to the whole world. I did’ 
not think that any perfon of moderate knowledge in profane: 
learning could have been ignorant of this remarkable cuf- 
tom among the nations of the eaft. But what ftill more 
furprifed me, and is the leaft:pardonable part of the whole,. 
was the ignorance of part.of.the law of God, the earlieft 
4. than 
